This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.
It’s hard to see how Piers Morgan survives.
Then again, this is the man who was sacked as editor of the Daily Mirror after the paper ran fake pictures of British soldiers abusing an Iraqi detainee – yet went on to global TV stardom when every other journalist on the planet would have seen their careers extinguished for good.
However, times have changed since Morgan got the chop for those hoax pictures in 2004. We’re post-Leveson now, and there’s zero tolerance for media scandals.
What passes for the remains of Morgan’s reputation was ground into dust when the judgement in the Prince Harry phone-hacking case landed. Harry won damages worth £140,600 against the Daily Mirror.
A high court judge ruled there was “extensive” hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers from 2006-2011, “even to some extent” during the Leveson Inquiry into media standards. Harry’s phone was hacked “to a modest extent” from the end of 2003 to April 2009.
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Morgan was Daily Mirror editor between 1995 and 2004. The High Court ruled Morgan knew about phone-hacking – and was involved – while Mirror editor.
Mr Justice Fancourt listed times when Morgan was said to have been aware of phone-hacking. The evidence wasn’t contested. Fancourt said he found evidence of Morgan’s involvement to be credible.
In a statement read by his lawyer, Prince Harry said that “unlawful and criminal activities were carried out… on a habitual and widespread basis for over more than a decade… The court has found the Mirror Group’s principle board directors, their legal department, senior executives and editors such as Piers Morgan clearly knew about or were involved in these illegal activities”.
Significantly, on phone-hacking, Morgan told the Leveson Inquiry in 2011: “I have no reason… to believe it was going on”.
In his statement, Harry said Morgan and others “went as far as lying under oath to Parliament during the Leveson Inquiry”.
Prince Harry’s lawyer called on financial regulators and police to bring charges against the Mirror’s publisher. In terms of journalistic scandals, this is about as bad as it gets.
Morgan pulled off the near-impossible when he salvaged his reputation after the Iraqi pictures scandal, somehow remaking himself as a fearless truth-teller. Today, he hosts Piers Morgan Uncensored on TalkTV, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK.
One imagines that after the demise of the News of the World, the Murdochs will want rid of presenters smeared with phone-hacking.
In 2011, the paper was shut by Murdoch after revelations News of the World reporters illegally accessed the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler.
How do you maintain the image of fearless truth-teller when you’ve been named and shamed – as tabloids would put it – for phone-hacking. That is a circle which cannot be squared. It really does look like curtains for Morgan.
If Piers Morgan wasn’t Piers Morgan – if he was just another journalist – then maybe he could wash up in the depths of GB News. But could Morgan stomach such a shaming end? Maybe better to slink off to Hollywood and stay there.
However, it’s potentially possible that GB News – given it platforms some truly bizarre presenters – could offer Morgan a berth. Such a scandal-tainted hire, though, would surely only further sully the reputation of an already besmirched broadcaster.
Read Neil every Friday in the Unspun newsletter.
Yet in the final analysis, Morgan’s career is meaningless. What matters is that for too long much of the British press has been dragged into the mire by a few. Shysters have dominated, and undermined the reporting of thousands of hard-working, honest journalists.
Prince Harry says that his victory underlines the need for a “free and honest press”. He is unquestionably right.
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